


The Heart Asks Pleasure First

by palavapeite



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Consent Issues, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, References to Underage Sex, Sex worker!Bucky, everything is all right in the end, hooker!AU, implied underage prostitution, mentions of physical abuse, sex worker!steve, so much more angst than i ever anticipated, undercover fairy god-agent sam wilson
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-20
Updated: 2014-07-20
Packaged: 2018-02-09 16:48:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1990311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palavapeite/pseuds/palavapeite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The one where Steve and Bucky are both hookers trying to keep their heads above water, and have been in love with each other since before they ran away together at seventeen. </p><p>In which Sam Wilson is not Richard Gere, but perhaps an undercover fairy godmother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heart Asks Pleasure First

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a quick sexy-flirty thing with some UST, but then it turned into a miserable angstfest that sat in my gdocs for weeks. I apologise. I'm normally more fun than this.
> 
> Title is taken from Michael Nyman's piano piece of the same name.

Steve sits at the kitchen table, bent over a cup of leftover coffee from the evening before when he hears Bucky’s key turning in the lock. It’s not unusual; Steve’s the first home most nights, their shoddy excuse for an apartment being a couple of blocks closer to his turf than Bucky’s. He doesn’t always go to sleep straight away.

Most nights he doesn’t wait up for two and a half hours, though. In the dark.

“You all right?” Bucky asks, stopping dead in his tracks when he spots Steve, voice a little hoarse as he drops his keys onto the table. He doesn’t turn on the lights and Steve swallows and shakes his head, shrugging.

“Yeah,” he replies, emptying his coffee. “Just… one of those nights.”

“Mh,” Bucky hums, pulling a bunch of rolled up notes out of his pocket and putting them down on the table. “You tell me. At least we’ve got rent covered now.”

Steve puts the money away under a loose floorboard in Bucky’s room, inside a vibrator the previous tenant left behind, while Bucky takes a quick, mostly cold shower and brushes his teeth. When he comes in, wearing only his boxers and flopping down on his bed, Steve asks,

“When’s the last time you had sex because you wanted to?”

“The orphanage,” comes the muffled reply and Steve turns around to look at the back of Bucky’s head, his face buried in a pillow. It’s quiet before Bucky looks up and at Steve.

“Steve, seriously, what’s going on?”

“Ah, forget it,” Steve sighs, then pulls a wry grin. “Dude went all deep on me once he’d come on my face. Wouldn’t shut up either.”

Bucky lets out a commiserating grunt, then sticks out his leg to nudge Steve’s thigh with his toe before pulling out the covers underneath himself and wriggling under.

Steve just shrugs, then turns to leave for his own room.

“What’d you tell him?” Bucky asks suddenly and Steve looks down at his feet before raising his eyebrow at Bucky.

“That I would hardly be in this line of work if I didn’t want it?”

It should sound cockier than it does and Steve knows, but then, Bucky isn’t a john. Bucky knows, has learnt just like Steve, possibly even told Steve first, that “once you actually wanna fuck someone in our line of work, pal, that’s a sign you’re screwed”.

Bucky contemplates Steve for a while, then lets his head flop back against the pillows.

“Come on,” he says, holding out a hand, fingers grabbing at the air, and Steve reluctantly smiles.

“It’s almost six. I got that job interview at ten.”

“No, you need a hug, so come the fuck on, I’m tired,” Bucky cuts in, holding the covers open for him while Steve strips out of his sweatpants. “Socks off.”

“Princess,” Steve mutters, his eyes already falling shut when Bucky’s arms wrap around him from behind.

He never makes it to the interview. He also tells himself that no bank would’ve hired him anyway, even as janitor.

+++

Sometimes life is so bright for them, Steve forgets about the rest.

Right now, he’s laughing up at Bucky, who is climbing onto the backrest of their ratty couch, giggling. There was a whole lot of beer; now there are mostly empty beer bottles.

It’s mid-afternoon, but they’ve pulled the curtains shut and decided to make it a night before the evening rolls around. Like they used to sometimes when they were younger and less tired.

“Now, Steve,” Bucky leers, one arm out to keep balance, the other one fumbling with an old camera. Steve’s not even sure you can get pictures developed off film anymore. He can’t remember either of them owning a camera at all. But then he’s also drunk off his ass.

Tilting his head back, he leers right back at Bucky, who’s trying to figure out the zoom.

“Give us a smile, Stevie,” he eventually grins, his lips red and wet. “One o’the good ones.”

“What, you gonna upload it to Instagram with your rich kid iPhone?” Steve asks and Bucky sways for a moment before scowling at Steve through the lens of the camera.

“Fuck you, this shit is vintage without filters. Now be a good boy and say ‘suck your cock for twenty’.”

Steve smirks and lazily stretches his arms over his head, lying back onto the floor, tipping over beer bottles on the way.

“Do I need to say it?”

The camera clicks and Bucky jumps, landing mostly on top of Steve.

“You’re such a goddamn asshole.”

“It’s a great photo,” Bucky grins, rolling off of Steve onto the floor. “We’ll print business cards.”

When they go to work later that evening, they’re in high spirits.

They only find out the next morning that the police raided a nightclub not far away from where Steve is working. It means business is going to be slow for a couple of days, and that’s never good.

+++

Bucky’s going to be so pissed.

Steve lands another blow before a kick to the stomach knocks the breath right out of him and he stumbles back, blinking just fast enough to see that the other guy is retreating - not without spitting at Steve’s feet, but there’s worse.

“Are you okay?”

Holding his stomach and blinking past the pounding in his head, Steve nods at the girl, who looks a little shaken, but not as frightened as five minutes ago. She’s combing her fingers through the blond locks around her face nervously.

“Yeah, I’ll live. How about you?”

“I’m fine,” she replies, turning around to look at her friends, who are waiting for her at the entrance to the club, before smiling stiffly. “Thanks. That could have… gone worse.”

He waves off and tells her anytime.

He privately thinks that if he’s going to find a john tonight, he’ll have to do it before that shiner starts blooming on his cheekbone. Because _that’s_ really not the kind of clientele he wants to have.

When he leaves the nightclub three hours later he hasn’t made any more money, his face is purple, and the bouncer gives him the nastiest look.

When he comes home, Bucky yells at him all the way to his bed and slams the door of Steve’s room shut behind him as he leaves.

+++

Four nights pass without income for Steve, despite the make-up that mostly covers up the bruised half of his face, and he can’t quite look Bucky in the eye when he returns with more money and a lot later in the morning than usual.

On the fifth night Bucky leaves early, saying that he’s got a client across town, and Steve only just manages to grab his hand and say “Buck, I’m sorry,” before he’s half out the door. He does stop for a moment, though, and nod.

“I know, Steve. I know.”

Steve smiles wearily at the closed apartment door before moving to the bathroom to make himself presentable, covering up what’s left of his bruise as best as he can, shoving a couple of condoms, some lube and a Viagra or two into the pockets of his jacket. He’s gone for the tightest pair of jeans he’s got tonight.

He’s just walking away from a quick and cheap hand job and some dirty talking when he sees one of the girls, one with long, black hair that he hasn’t seen before, point in his direction as she talks to a tall, black man of about Steve’s age, maybe a little older.

Steve has a moment of onsetting panic, looking around for observers before straightening up and watching the man walk over to him. Hustling on the streets is a bad idea, for so many reasons, but the man doesn’t look like he’s out for trouble, and seems put together enough that he might be willing to drop more than the usual couple of bucks. There is a ring on his finger.

“Hi there... Steve, right?” he says, stepping up to Steve, who takes in the brown eyes, neatly trimmed moustache and easy smile and decides that after two nights of no money he’ll take the risk.

“Got lost?” he asks, shifting his body to lessen the height difference a little. “You look like you need directions.”

“I might just.”

They’re halfway to where the guy says his apartment is, walking past a small park, when Steve finally figures it out and his blood freezes in his veins.

The guy’s a cop.

Shit.

Shit, shit, shit, shit, _shit_ …

 

Half an hour later Steve is out of breath and hurrying up the stairs to their apartment, and he only really comes back to himself when he closes the apartment door behind himself and hears retching from the bathroom.

“Bucky?”

Bucky sits bent over the toilet, fingers down his throat and tears streaming down his face. It takes Steve all of a second to forget about his night and sink to the floor next to him.

“Steve,” Bucky gasps out, ribs shaking under Steve’s hand as he runs it up and down Bucky’s back. His whole body is trembling and Steve barely dares to ask.

Finally, Bucky sits back on his heels and wipes his mouth on the back of his dry hand before dropping his face into this palm. A sob breaks out of him and Steve shifts forward a little and pulls Bucky against him.

“Buck, what happened?” he mutters into his hair, and Bucky’s next sob comes out like a snort into the front of Steve’s shirt.

“Fucker slipped me something,” he croaks, gulping breaths, and Steve tucks Bucky closer to himself, heart sinking in his chest. Drugs always end in misery for the two of them, none of the high, just more of the low, until it wears off. Steve thinks that maybe it’s for the better, and they’re careful, both of them, but it doesn’t make it hurt less now.

They sit for a while and Steve idly dries off Bucky’s fingers with a towel while softly rocking them both back and forth.

“He didn’t want a rubber,” Bucky eventually whispers shakily and Steve, who’s been almost relieved that it’s just another bad comedown from a spiked drink, feels his stomach drop right through the bottom of the floor.

He swallows.

“Did you…” he starts, then shakes his head. It doesn’t even matter. “We’ll go get checked tomorrow. It’ll be all right. You hear me? You’ll be all right.”

Bucky lets himself be pulled into the shower for a quick rinse down before gargling away half their mouthwash and following Steve to his bed. It’s one of the nights when they both bother with their ugly pyjamas, like the cheap flannel provides a strange kind of comfort.

“It was just my mouth,” Bucky mutters against Steve’s collarbone. His muscles are still twitching and shaking and Steve rubs up and down his arm. “I think. I-”

“You’ll be fine, Buck,” Steve soothes, whispering because he’s not sure his voice is up to it right now. 

When he feels Bucky’s breath even out against the crook of his neck, his weight warm and secure against his chest, Steve tries to stop worrying. He presses Bucky just a little closer and really, really tries.

His thoughts drift off to the cop. _Special Agent Sam Wilson_ , who, against all expectations, didn’t try to throw him in jail or search him for drugs. Or bully him into giving him some ass for free, which, yeah, has happened too. 

He just talked, and Steve took his card without promising anything, and Wilson seemed fine with that. But the guy sounded sincere, too, and even if Steve wants no trouble, he thinks maybe, maybe he can hold his eyes open.

Bucky sniffles in his sleep and Steve closes his eyes.

No, he thinks. He won’t.

They’re done with the pimps, and the dealers, and all the other bullies of the city’s underbelly, and it’s taken them so long and so much hard-earned money to get their heads down this low. He’s only ever heard his grandparents talk about things like the mob, and they’re dead now, and his parents are too, and the orphanage where he met Bucky is burnt to the ground.

+++

They both get checked at least every other month, but this time they pay extra money they don’t really have to get Bucky’s test results on the same day, right away, and when one of Steve’s regulars calls to set a date for tonight, Steve decides to shell out money he’ll earn later and treat them both to an early dinner after they leave the clinic.

Bucky’s still a little shaky, but mostly with relief now, initial results all clear and the paper to prove it folded in his jacket pocket. His eyes laugh when he teases Steve about the hair that’s falling into his face, past his eyebrows, and he doesn’t seem very fazed when Steve points out that Bucky’s own hair is long enough in parts to be tucked behind his ears.

“Hey, you should take the night off,” Steve tells Bucky as he gets ready for his date, packing an extra Viagra for the client, along with condoms and lube. “Seriously, you’ve been working what, double after I screwed up the other day…?”

Bucky takes a break from his daily set of crunches and, hair spread across the threadbare carpet, looks up at Steve standing in the door to his room.

“Okay,” he says simply and Steve smiles, saluting.

“You can wait up. We both know this isn’t going to last long.”

Bucky chuckles and continues with his workout.

+++

They do have real, actual jobs, sometimes, both of them, if they can.

Thing is, Steve thinks as he walks back up to the apartment, grocery bag in hand, none of the jobs they occasionally can get last them long. Not because they don’t try – although, admittedly, sometimes they don’t – but because none of the places that’ll hire fuck ups without a high school diploma are usually economically steady enough to survive long, or can afford to keep all their employees for more than a couple of months, or it was all just a seasonal thing to begin with.

And none of them have ever paid as well as getting fucked for money, even if it’s a twenty for a blow job. 

Still, he’s bent over the kitchen table and looks through the job pages of the newspaper he fished out of the dumpsters downstairs by the time Bucky steps out of the bathroom, towel around his hips.

“Hey,” he says, smiling when he sees Steve, and Steve smiles back, watching Bucky disappear into his room.

Bucky has a new and pretty generous customer, who’s apparently well on the way to becoming a regular, and there haven’t been any incidents for either of them the last couple of weeks. It’s the regulars that pay the big money, and Steve’s even had spare cash for a haircut, a warm jacket to get him through the next couple of winters, and a new pair of jeans that’ll fit either of them if needs be. 

There hasn’t been a police raid in their part of town in a week and it looks like they’ve moved on to the dock area, which is fine by Steve because he doesn’t plan on ever going back to the docks.

When Bucky comes out of his room, dressed for the night, Steve has put away the newspaper and microwaved mac and cheese for both of them.

“I gotta go,” Bucky mutters when he’s finished his, and is putting his plate and fork in the sink. His lips are greasy, and he bends down and hesitates for a moment, then presses a small kiss to Steve’s cheek before ruffling his hair. “Stay out of trouble, yeah? And uh... don’t wait up.”

“I won’t.”

It’s a good night for Steve, too. No-one takes him home, but he goes to three nightclubs, gets fucked in the men’s room in two of them and brings off a woman with his mouth and fingers in the backseat of her car while her driver patiently waits outside.

Bucky still isn’t back when he comes home, and Steve falls asleep, exhausted and thinking that if he doesn’t touch anyone’s dick ever again it’ll be too soon.

+++

“No, I don’t know, he’s just...” Bucky laughs and spills some vodka onto his thigh and boxers. He takes a swig from the bottle and shrugs, rolling his eyes at Steve’s sceptical face. “I don’t know, man, he’s weird about protocol or somethin’. But hey, pays more for five hours of bossing me around than I’d ever make in a whole night, so...”

The rest of the sentence drowns in his drunken giggles and Steve steals the bottle from him before any more of it can go to waste. 

It’s a good day, one of the best, and Bucky’s second check-up’s come back clean, and he feels alive in Steve’s arms as they jump and dance around the couch to terrible music from the radio. They almost step on the half-empty pizza box on the floor, and Bucky lets himself drop onto the carpet next to it while Steve falls back onto the couch, panting. 

“We should go out,” Bucky says when Steve bends down to take another slice of pizza. His fingers are brushing down the length of Steve’s forearm. “Let’s go dancing. We can go back to work tomorrow.”

Steve cocks his head, grinning around his mouthful of pizza. 

“Dancing? You wanna go dancing with _me_?” 

Bucky sits up and takes a bite of Steve’s pizza. 

“I want,” he says, chewing, his eyes locked on Steve’s, “us to be the hottest thing they’ll ever see, and then just leave without fucking anyone.” 

Steve takes another bite of pizza before shoving the remaining mouthful between Bucky’s lips. 

“I like the sound of that.” 

Two hours later they move shirtless in a crowd of strangers, at a place they’ve never been before, and Steve’s fingers are tracing the lines of sweat down Bucky’s chest, smiling drunkenly at the way Bucky’s lips look purple in the light. Bucky just laughs and rests his arms on Steve’s shoulders before tilting his head back. 

The music’s too loud to talk, and Steve remembers that they don’t do this, just _don’t_ , for so many reasons, and the line they drew is still there, it really is, but he doesn’t want to take his hands away, and Bucky doesn’t take his eyes off Steve.

They are the hottest thing the club has ever seen.

+++

They have enough money that month to put some aside, the way they planned to when they started out, with the aim of getting enough to get out and do something proper with their lives. That was seven years ago, or possibly eight.

Back then, Steve thinks as his hands grip Bucky’s wrists, back then it was Steve, seventeen, five feet tall, with big eyes and a pretty mouth, who helped them both understand, really understand, just how ugly the world could get. It was Steve, in the beginning, who brought home the money to keep them fed, and he thinks maybe Bucky has never forgiven that.

“Bucky,” Steve says now, thumbs brushing over the faint red circles around Bucky’s wrists, careful not to press too hard. 

“Calm down. It’s not what you think, Steve,” Bucky says, sounding tired and just a little defensive. He pulls his arms out of Steve’s grip. “He laid it all out beforehand and it went down without a hitch.” He rubs the skin around his wrists. “The marks will be gone by tonight.”

Steve shakes his head.

“Just… don’t do anything stupid, okay Buck?”

Bucky just smirks.

“Says you, who gets into fisticuffs over some hooker’s virtue.”

“Someone oughta,” Steve mutters, but reluctantly lets it go. 

They say goodnight and Steve lies awake for a long time.

When he climbs out of bed around eight in the morning, restless and lonely and exhausted, Bucky doesn’t say anything, just moves over when Steve crawls under the covers. His fingers find Steve’s shoulder and give it a gentle pat before he’s back asleep.

He’s right, though. The marks are gone the following night.

+++

“Touch yourself, dear boy,” the voice gasps behind him and Steve complies, shifting his weight onto his left hand while reaching down with his right. At this point he can pace himself to come just in time for the old man to pull out and dribble his spunk across Steve’s lower back, he’s been there often enough. The quickly discarded rubber lands on Steve’s right buttock and he feels it slide down his thigh onto the bed.

He stays face down on the covers for a bit afterwards while the man cleans himself up and puts on some clothes. Steve’s observant enough to know that the sight of him, fucked out and slack, will get him another twenty extra. And the sheets are nice, not quite silk, but almost...

The parting kiss he gets at the door is dry and he fights the urge to wet his lips as he walks away from the rather fancy townhouse. 

He feels tired and sore, and doesn’t really want to find himself another john for the night, but a quick look at the time tells him Bucky won’t be home any time soon, and he can’t quite face an empty apartment tonight. 

A sarcastic text from Bucky concerning the originality of pick-up lines makes him smile, and he updates Bucky on his own plans.

 _dont get kicked out again_ is all Bucky replies and Steve huffs and put his phone away.

He leans against the wall in one of his usual haunts and scans the crowd without much enthusiasm. The barman is throwing him a shifty look and Steve raises his beer perfunctorily to keep him from calling the bouncers. 

Through the haze of smoke he spots Sam Wilson, looking alarmed, and that’s when the shooting starts. 

Half a second later, everyone is in panic and the room becomes a blur of hair, clothes and terrified faces. A bullet hits the wall just above his head.

Steve is all but running away from the nightclub as soon as the fresh air hits his face, head down and decidedly not looking back at the first arriving police cars. The wailing of an ambulance is audible. 

People are hurt. Steve saw the unmoving bodies on the floor between the many screaming and running ones, and they looked familiar even though he doesn’t know their names. 

Home, he needs to get home. 

“Wait!” 

He recognises the voice and spins around. 

“Don’t talk to me, okay? Don’t!” he snaps at Sam Wilson, who’s got his arm on Steve’s elbow and makes him stop and face him. Steve’s hands are shaking as he fumbles for his wallet. He looks past Wilson at the club, and oh god, they’re wheeling out bodies. 

“Did you know who the shooters were?” Wilson asks him sharply and Steve stares at him before shaking his head. 

“No,” he says, voice raspy. It’s true, he’s never seen them before. Lots of people are tall and dark and handsome and dangerous.

Another body is carried out of the club. 

“Are you sure?” Wilson asks again, eyes boring into Steve’s. “Steve. There have been three simultaneous shootings tonight and all of them in clubs...” he pauses, looks for the right word, “...similar to this one. We have reason to believe that sex workers are being targeted here.” 

He takes a step closer to Steve, but Steve can barely hear him. He jerks in surprise when Wilson puts his hand onto his shoulder.

“So please, if you know something, anything-” 

“I’m sorry,” Steve chokes out, pulling Wilson’s card out of his wallet and dropping it at his feet. _Bucky_ , is all he can think. Bucky, _please, not Bucky_ \- “I can’t help you. Please. I can’t, okay?” 

He runs home, fumbling for his phone when it starts ringing and almost falls over his own feet when he hears Bucky’s voice on the other end. 

Steve’s been home for all of ten minutes when Bucky barges in through the door, and he’s okay, he looks ruffled, but he’s not bleeding or injured. His eyes dart over Steve’s body frantically, and then he kisses him, brief and fierce, before pulling him into a hug. Steve just holds on. 

They sit up into the early morning hours, huddled onto Steve’s bed and listening to the radio, where the reports remain pretty vague on the whole. 

Seventeen sex workers dead in three shootings all over town. Four of them died in hospital. The shooters have not yet been identified.

+++

They stay at home for the next five nights, all of which are weeknights and they tell themselves there wasn’t much money to make anyway. Shootings are bad for business and there’s bound to be police everywhere.

Steve starts looking for jobs again and he even gets an interview for one of them two weeks from now. He sees Bucky skim down job pages too, when he thinks Steve isn’t looking. 

Steve suggests they shell out to either get the TV fixed or get a new one. He’s becoming restless, and he’s let Bucky go for groceries because he isn’t sure Wilson isn’t out there looking for him. 

The heating gives out and they start wearing sweaters around the apartment because it’s November and the windows are old and drafty. 

For the first two nights they share a bed because somehow it’s easier to fall asleep talking. 

When Steve blinks awake on the fifth day, Bucky’s face is pressed into his shoulder, hand tucking his own blanket up under his chin. Steve shifts, stills when Bucky’s eyes open and meet his.

He’s sleepy and so beautiful, and Steve’s hard, achingly hard for him. 

“Mmmh,” Bucky sighs when Steve pulls him into a kiss, and then it’s all they do, blindly pushing past the sheets and blankets between them and rolling together. Steve slides a hand up under the sweater Bucky’s wearing without really planning to take it off and Bucky smiles against the stubble on Steve’s face, making happy little sounds that Steve hasn’t heard in a long time. 

There’s no tongue, not this early in the morning, and not more skin than the slide of their clothes will give, but Bucky’s hand is in Steve’s hair, and when Steve dips down to kiss at Bucky’s neck, he grinds his hips onto Bucky’s thigh. 

And then, barely audible against the shell of his ear, he hears Bucky breathe ‘yes’ and ‘please’ and ‘please, oh, Steve’.

“Do you remember the orphanage?” Steve asks when they’re both gross and sticky, and still clinging to each other. 

Bucky presses a kiss into Steve’s hair. 

That night, Bucky’s new regular calls, and Steve throws their sheets and dirty clothes into a bag and leaves for the laundromat. When he comes back, Bucky has already gone out.

+++

The interview, when it finally rolls around a week later, doesn’t go too well. Bucky wasn’t at home yet when Steve left in the morning, dressed up in the only somewhat nice shirt he owns, and when Steve comes back to the apartment afterwards, Bucky’s there to tell him he’s stocked them up on razors, condoms, lube, Viagra and all the other things Steve doesn’t want to think about. He’s even bought something for the cold sore Steve’s been developing in the corner of his upper lip.

Bucky’s back is streaked with faint, red lines that he tells Steve he isn’t going to talk about.

Steve, in turn, doesn’t talk about how he ran into Wilson on the way out of his job interview and how this time, Wilson only gave him his card in case he could ever help Steve. 

He can hear Bucky hissing and cursing in the shower when the water hits his back. 

Steve’s never going to call Wilson.

But he does take the bottle of lotion from Bucky’s hand and sits down on the bed behind him to keep him from twisting his arms out of their joints trying to reach. And Bucky holds still when Steve spreads the lotion across his back, holds still when Steve nudges the vertebra at the back of his neck with his nose, and tries his best to hold still when Steve starts to sing a random cheesy country song from the radio off key into his ear. 

It’s the horrified, embarrassed burst of laughter that eventually breaks out of Bucky around the time Steve hits the second chorus that Steve thinks of when some john insists on sucking him off later that night. He doesn’t really want to bring Bucky into this, doesn’t want to think of Bucky at all when someone he doesn’t know is poking around his ass with two fingers, but the guy starts humming impatiently and they need the money. 

There was a line, he reminds himself, somewhere.

+++

Steve’s taking a break from the noise and music and the nagging voice at the back of his head that he should really make at least another fifty bucks tonight, when a girl in fishnet stockings that he’s seen around a couple of times steps up to him, the smoke of her cigarette wafting past his face.

“Look, I don’t know you,” she says, brushing her long, black hair out of her face. “But I have eyes. You should talk to him.” 

“What?” 

“Wilson,” she replies and his face hardens into a bitter smile when he looks her up and down again, more carefully. He has to look closely, but he sees the cracks in the facade. Of course she’s a cop, too. Or a special agent, whatever that means. Undercover with the hookers.

“Coulda fooled me,” he says with a snort and she raises an eyebrow, which silences him somewhat. He’s not usually rude. 

“I’m just saying,” she says, dropping her cigarette and tapping it out with the tip of her shoe. “He’d help you, you know. If you wanted to get out. He’s done it before.” 

Somehow it’s the wrong thing to say.

“You know what, fuck off! Do I look like Julia Roberts to you?” he snaps and jerks away from her, ready to just find another club for the night. 

“Coulda fooled me,” she calls after him.

+++

They sit and wait forever at the clinic for their regular check-up this time, and Bucky’s slumped in his seat next to Steve, dozing while Steve plays a boring puzzle game on his phone. He got a callback from the job interview the other week just before they left the apartment and he still doesn’t quite believe they’re actually taking him on for a trial period next month.

He’s not even sure how to feel about it.

It won’t pay the bills, he knows, and it won’t cover rent and food and all their other expenses, but it’s a start, it’s something... isn’t it? What if it won’t ever be enough?

“Steve,” Bucky interrupts his thoughts, shoving him out of his seat and pointedly looking at the nurse that’s stepped out of the treatment room. “Your turn.” 

Steve hurries to his feet and only briefly glances back at Bucky before following the nurse, who’s already preparing the needle to draw his blood. For a moment Steve wonders what she’ll think about the red lines around Bucky’s wrists that have somehow stopped fading between the times he meets his client when she sees them. 

Maybe, he flinches when she pricks him, maybe the job will at least be enough that Bucky can cut that one loose. In the long run.

He’s still thinking about it by the time Bucky comes back from his own examination and nudges Steve’s foot with the tip of his shoe. 

“Hi there, gorgeous,” he grins cockily and pulls Steve to his feet. “You look like you should let me buy you coffee.” 

The waitress of the coffee shop serves them with a silently approving, half-hidden smile and Steve lets himself be pulled into a corner with low tables and couches built apparently for exactly one and a half person. 

“You got any plans tonight?” he asks quietly, and Bucky licks a cupcake crumb from his bottom lip, eyes darting from Steve’s eyes to his mouth as he shakes his head. 

“Brock’s not in town, so... the usual clubs,” he says casually and Steve shuffles a little closer, if that’s even possible on this seat. His throat feels dry and he wishes he hadn’t already finished his coffee.

“Pick you up at two?” he mutters and Bucky doesn’t kiss him, not in public, but his face quietly lights up with the ‘yes’ on his lips. 

It’s a little after three in the morning, and Bucky’s hair is wet from the shower. Little drops of water fall cold onto Steve’s face whenever Bucky moves in his lap, and it makes him smile as they kiss and laugh and touch and want and come.

+++

Steve’s halfway into his third week at work when he thinks that maybe he’s been a fool, and that he should just quit and go back to his real life. It’s not the job itself, thankless and underpaid as it is; it’s the hollow feeling in Steve’s gut whenever he comes home and finds Bucky already gone, or leaves in the morning and sees that Bucky’s bed is still empty.

He tries, for a while, to still go out for an hour or two every night and at least bring home a little money, until Bucky, tired and thinner than usual, throws a screaming fit over dinner and yells at Steve to just cut the fucking crap and stop being an asshole. 

Steve, ever the champion, shouts right back at him and they slam doors and tell their complaining neighbours to fuck off, and then yell some more, until they can’t anymore. 

Bucky feels brittle under Steve’s hands and his eyes are dark and clouded in the bathroom light as he quietly pleads with him. Steve would kiss him, if he thought either of them could bear it.

So it’s Bucky who keeps them fed until Steve gets paid his lousy wages at the end of the month, and Bucky who worries about rent, Bucky who takes on Steve’s regulars, and Bucky who starts to spend whole nights away, with a guy who leaves red marks and bruises on his body, and a hardened, distant look in his eyes that Steve isn’t sure he’ll ever forgive.

+++

Steve finishes the late shift on a Sunday exhausted and fed up with life, and once he realises where he’s going, he’s already halfway there and keeps right on walking.

The club isn’t busy, it’s Sunday night, after all, but a couple of patrons sit at the bar, and smoke lies thick and heavy in the air. Steve checks the men’s room and the dark corners, and is just about to leave when he spots Bucky ducking out of the ladies’ room, looking inconspicuous and unbothered. It takes him about five seconds to spot Steve, and all Steve can think of to say is, 

“Come to bed?” 

Bucky just smiles and goes to grab his jacket while Steve waits. The door to the ladies’ room opens again, and Steve struggles for a long moment until he recognises her. Turns out her hair is red underneath the black wig Steve’s seen her wear, but her face is just as striking, her eyes just as sharp. 

When Bucky steps up to him, Steve subtly nods at her. 

“That woman. I think she’s a cop.” 

Bucky’s face tenses for a moment before his features relax and he drags Steve outside, where his voice leaves white puffs in the night air. 

“If she’s a cop she just paid thirty for oral, so I’m not really worried.” 

At home, they’re out like a light the moment their heads hit the pillow, and Steve sleeps like the dead until his alarm tells him it’s time to get up and back to work. Bucky gets up with him, just to have breakfast together. 

They don’t see each other at all for the next three days. The police have to intervene at a nightclub in Bucky’s area, and Steve checks his phone every five minutes until, finally, Bucky texts back to tell him he’s fine, he’s spent the night at Brock’s and is on his way home now.

+++

Wilson has apparently established himself as a familiar and harmless face at the least dodgy diner in their area, and Steve ignores him when he gets lunch to go for everyone back at work. Wilson is casually sitting at the counter, bent over a newspaper.

Steve keeps his head down and his left hand out of sight. The knuckles are still bruised from the brawl he more or less started on his way home last night, and while he can’t think of reason why Wilson should know about it, he doesn’t want to be asked. 

He just slumps onto a barstool a little further away, but not enough to be suspicious, and rests his eyes for a moment, vaguely listening to the cook flipping burgers in the kitchen. 

While Wilson is chatting with the waitress, Steve’s eyes are caught by the headline of the newspaper, and he cranes his neck without really wanting to. Police are still investigating the case of a call boy who was found beaten to death behind a cinema. 

“Makes me wanna fucking pack up and move to ‘nother part of town,” the cook grumbles and catches Steve’s attention as he puts his collective order down in front of him, all wrapped up in two plastic bags. He’s looking at Wilson while Steve counts out the money. “Ain’t no fun no more, even if it’s just hookers.” 

Steve hands over the money with his jaw clenched, noticing from the corner of his eyes how Wilson throws him a glance before replying something vague, non-confrontational and neutral to the cook. Steve locks eyes with him for only a moment, before he puts on his game face and shrugs casually at the cook, who’s already on his way back into the kitchen as the waitress comes bustling back with new orders. 

“Wouldn’t know where to go, really,” he says, eyes darting back to Wilson, who is listening with a passive face. “Ain’t a difference elsewhere, either.”

+++

Steve’s first salary, including tips, is fifty bucks short of covering their rent and Steve, who hasn’t cried since his first month at the orphanage, feels his eyes sting in frustration.

“Steve,” Bucky begins and Steve just shakes his head, unable to look him in the eye. 

“I can’t... you can’t tell me to keep doing this...”

Bucky’s hands come up to cup Steve’s face and make him look up. 

“Steve.” His voice is stern. “Don’t. This isn’t half as bad as you make it out to be, okay? You keep going, and we’ll be all right, you hear me? We’ll do this,” he says, taking a breath to go on, but falling silent when Steve’s fingers brush up over his collarbone. 

“Your neck, Buck.” 

“It’s fine,” Bucky replies, and Steve can feel the move of his throat under his fingers as he swallows. There is a faint, but visible red line around his neck, and Steve’s heart is in pieces. 

“It’s not,” he croaks, lifting his face out of Bucky’s hands and sighing as he moves back a little. “No client should take up that much time, you... why do you let him-”

“Don’t,” Bucky cuts in and takes a step back himself. He’s glaring at Steve, or at least trying to. “It’s steady income, Steve, about as steady as it’s gonna get. Stop acting like he broke me, okay? I’m not, I’m not broken.”

He sounds far too desperate, and Steve turns away and rubs at his eyes, nodding silently. 

“You can’t give up your job, Steve,” Bucky adds quietly. “It’s not forever, I promise. I’ve...” he sounds reluctant, almost ashamed and Steve can sense him shift behind him. “I’m trying, Stevie, okay? I am, I want to-” He breaks off, hesitating. “I had a job interview yesterday that didn’t go so bad, okay, and I keep looking-” 

He’s shut up by Steve’s mouth on his, tasting of salt, and Steve kisses him like he always wants to kiss him, like he’s wanted to kiss him for all the years they didn’t kiss at all. Bucky won’t let them say ‘I love you’, but they know, Steve knows that Bucky knows. 

They don’t break apart for a while, and when they do they’re breathless and Steve feels like he did after the fire at the orphanage, when they were told that they would split up over different shelters until a permanent solution could be found for all the suddenly homeless children. He still remembers, to this day, the taste of lemonade on Bucky’s tongue, the stale sweetness of his breath. 

“Run away with me,” Bucky said back then, and Steve whispers it now, against the huff of gentle laughter falling from Bucky’s mouth before his lips are back on Steve’s. 

“I would,” Bucky mutters between kisses. “I would.”

+++

They make it through another month.

+++

The sound of police sirens is carried inside through the open window, and Steve shivers and decides that the smoke’s cleared out enough for him to close the window. The insides of the pot are scorched black as it sits in the sink, filled to the brim with cold water. He’s having toast for dinner instead.

It hasn’t snowed yet this winter, but it probably will soon, Steve thinks, looking out at the darkened rooftops for a moment. The sirens haven’t stopped wailing and an ambulance drives by below, heading north. Steve’s not sure whether he hears actual gunfire from that direction, but he closes the window. 

He looks at his phone and considers texting Bucky, just to make sure he’s all right, but he reminds himself that Bucky’s with his client until well past midnight, at his private house. 

He’ll be safe there, for sure, Steve thinks, gut churning as he settles down on the couch. 

When he wakes from his doze hours later, he’s not entirely certain why. It’s quiet in the apartment, and one glance at the clock tells him it’s late, too late for Bucky still to be out. The sky is turning grey outside and the silence is wrong, somehow uncanny. Bucky isn’t answering his phone and Steve is suddenly terrified. 

He doesn’t care how little sense it makes, but he’s grabbed his jacket and stepped into his shoes before he’s formulated so much as half a plan as to how he’s going to find Bucky in this city. 

The door hasn’t even closed behind him when he stops dead in the middle of the hall, and there, pale and clinging to railing as he crawls up the stairs, is Bucky. 

“Steve,” is all he gets out before Steve is there and trying to hold him up. Bucky moans, pain flashing across his face, and when Steve’s hand comes away from his shoulder he can see the dark stain pressing through his jacket. 

Bucky claws at Steve’s arm with his good hand and they make it the remaining couple of steps up and through their door before he collapses against Steve, who does his best to prop him up on a chair he pulls close. 

“Bucky,” Steve gasps when he peels the jacket off of Bucky’s shoulder in horror, hands turning red with the blood that’s soaked through his t-shirt. There’s so much of it and he doesn’t know how to touch because Bucky’s entire shoulder looks so wrong and his arm is hanging limply in his lap. 

“He got a phone call,” Bucky says, eyes wide as he stares at Steve’s hands. “And when he came back he had a gun. I ran.” 

Steve catches Bucky’s head when it lolls to one side and tries to make him look at him. Bucky’s lips are almost white and his eyes slip in and out of focus. 

“Bucky! Bucky! Talk to me!” he calls, gently shaking Bucky’s head, but all Bucky does is sigh Steve’s name before he slumps forward and against him, heavy and limp and terrifyingly lifeless. 

“Bucky!” 

Steve keeps calling his name as he lays him onto the floor, looking around helplessly for something to press onto the wound, something to stop the bleeding with. He grabs a mostly dry towel off the laundry rack and holds it down on the part of the shoulder the bleeding seems to be coming from. Bucky’s name falls from his lips in a steady stream of hopeless pleading, but Bucky doesn’t move despite the pain Steve must be causing him. 

In the end Steve is shaking so hard, he can barely hold his hands still on the towel, and he sits back on his haunches and starts digging for his phone and his wallet. 

“Please,” he sobs when the beeping on the other end is replaced by a voice. “Please help me.”

+++

“Excuse me,” a nurse suddenly says and Steve looks up at her, blinking against the fluorescent light on the ceiling. “Someone is here to talk to you.”

Steve, who’s been waiting for someone to talk to him for a good hour, jerks upright to look past her, shoulders sagging when she steps aside and Sam Wilson drops into the plastic seat next to him, briefly acknowledging the blood on Steve’s shirt and jeans, and on Bucky’s jacket that is lying across his lap. Steve hangs his head again, folding the old photograph in his hands up and shoving it back into Bucky’s wallet. 

“He’s gonna be fine,” Wilson says and Steve forces a smile, not really feeling any better for it. “Trust me, been there, done that. He’ll be stuck with a sling for a couple of weeks, but otherwise just as good as new.” 

It’s quiet for a moment and eventually, Steve takes a deep breath. 

“Thank you,” he says, turning Bucky’s wallet over in his hands nervously as he shoots a sideways glance at Wilson. “For... you know, for... everything. You didn’t have to.”

“I told you,” Wilson replies. “You could call anytime.” He contemplates Steve for a while, then looks almost apologetic. “Listen, I know you don’t wanna talk about this now, but if you know anything-”

“I don’t,” Steve retorts and Wilson glares a little.

“Anything, Steve.” 

“I don’t,” Steve repeats and there’s no humour in his laugh. “It was... he was Bucky’s customer. I don’t know where he lives, or what he looks like, or... Bucky said his name was Brock, but that might be false. I never asked, okay? This, we... I never wanted to know,” he admits quietly.

“I’ll need to talk to him about it once they’ll let me in, you know that, right?” Wilson asks and Steve nods. “He’s no longer a direct suspect, but whatever he knows, we’re gonna need it.” 

“A suspect?” Steve asks dumbly and Wilson shrugs in a weird, professional way. 

“We heard he might be involved with a crime syndicate that killed over thirty sex workers in the past couple of months, without getting killed himself. It didn’t look particularly kosher, Steve. Still doesn’t.” 

“You don’t know what he did to him, though,” Steve mutters, hugging Bucky’s jacket a little tighter against his stomach. “He was killing him, just... slowly. A bit at a time. Him and me both.” And Bucky was going to let it happen, for me, is what he doesn’t say.

“We caught a lot of them last night,” Wilson says gently. “It was a pretty successful bust, but this guy, someone higher up the ladder tipped him off and we think that’s why he tried to get rid of your friend quickly without taking up pursuit. He’ll be gone by now and if we don’t act quickly, we’re going to lose his trail, do you understand? So if there’s any chance of finding out where your friend was last night...” 

“I checked his phone,” Steve interrupts. “There are no texts or anything. We’ve never kept records or address books...” He flips through Bucky’s wallet and there’s nothing except for a rubber, a couple of dollars, and the old photograph that he only lets Wilson catch the briefest glimpse of. “I’m sorry. I really wish I could help.” 

He means it, he realises. He wants nothing more than to see this man taken down, for all the selfish reasons that have nothing to do with thirty dead sex workers. 

Down the hall a door opens, and the red-haired woman who works with Wilson steps into the corridor and gives him a curt wave. Wilson walks over to her and, after a short exchange of words, comes back to sit beside Steve. 

“The nurses found a bus ticket in your friend’s jeans pocket,” he informs Steve. “We assume he took that bus on his way home, so we have a general area to go on.” 

Steve nods.

“Good. That’s... good.” He looks at the woman, who is talking on the phone now. “Is there... is there any news yet? About Bucky?” 

“No, but the doctor should be here soon,” Wilson says and Steve sinks further into his seat. 

The hospital is getting busier as the morning goes on and more people move past them. 

“I kept wondering, you know,” Wilson eventually says, smiling a little sadly when Steve doesn’t understand. “What your hang up was. Why you didn’t-” He shakes his head. “What kept you.”

Steve clenches his jaw and looks over at him. What _kept_ him. He hates how it sounds, how it makes it look like Bucky is a dead weight rather than the only thing that’s kept him _going_ , kept him continuing past his eighteenth birthday. 

“What, your lady friend never found out? How neglectful of her, she looked so perceptive to me.” He sounds hurt and defensive, and his fingers dig into the leather of Bucky’s wallet. “You know, Wilson, just because we’re both hookers doesn’t mean-” 

“I’m sorry, that came out wrong,” Wilson interrupts and he does look just about sorry enough for Steve to cut his rant short. “That’s not what I meant to say. I apologise. I understand, I do.”

A nearby mother of a wailing child sends Steve a dirty look and he stubbornly looks away and back at Wilson, accepting the apology with a nod. 

“Also,” Wilson adds, clearing his throat lightly, “That’s my wife you’re talking about, so watch it.” 

Steve recognises the olive branch and huffs. 

“I don’t see her wearing a ring.” 

“Well,” Wilson replies, a little self-consciously. “I guess I’m gonna ask her once she’s no longer my superior officer on this whole thing. But I’ve been meaning to for a while now.” 

“Sleeping with the boss, huh,” Steve answers, something in Wilson’s face making him smile. “That’s not very Richard Gere.” 

Wilson just laughs and Steve chuckles along. When a doctor comes out into the hallway, avidly talking to a nurse, Steve sits up a little straighter, shoulders sagging when both turn away from him to walk in the opposite direction. 

“That photograph,” Wilson says, hesitantly, as if he’s not sure he’s allowed. “How old were you?” 

Steve takes it out of Bucky’s wallet and unfolds it, lingering on his own young face, his lithe body looking even tinier in Bucky’s arms that are slung around him from behind. They’re smiling and so clearly in love, and Steve remembers being happy. 

“It was my eighteenth birthday,” he says softly, and Wilson smiles. “We took the night off work to watch the fireworks.” 

When he looks at him, Steve can see something in Wilson’s eyes die.

+++

They let Steve in after the red-haired woman - _Agent Romanov_ , Wilson calls her - has spoken to Bucky. It doesn’t take long, and she and Wilson leave little time later, talking quietly to each other.

Bucky is sitting upright in his hospital bed, left arm in a sling, and while he still looks tired, his eyes are alert. 

“Hey,” Steve says and Bucky looks over at him, follows him with his gaze as he walks over to the chair by the bed and sits down. Steve’s fingers find Bucky’s good hand and squeeze. 

“You called the cops on me,” Bucky says, an undefined emotion audible in his voice, and Steve feels the sting of it, incredulity blended with hurt and betrayal and resignation. 

“I did,” Steve replies quietly, unwilling to look away in shame. He’s not ashamed, he can’t feel guilty for this. “I didn’t know what else to do. He said he’d help.” 

Bucky’s breath bursts from his lips and he looks away. He bites his lips and blinks a couple of times before turning back at Steve without really looking at him. 

“In return for what, Steve?” 

His voice sounds so small and upset, Steve puts his other hand around their clasped ones. 

“Nothing.” Bucky snorts and Steve shakes his hand, makes him look at him. “I’m not sleeping with him, I swear, Bucky, I swear. I... I haven’t gone back.” 

Something between a laugh and a sob of relief breaks out of Bucky’s throat and all of a sudden Steve’s heart is in his mouth. It’s terrifying. 

“You know,” he laughs quietly, conscious of Bucky’s eyes on him as he looks down at their joined hands. “I think I’m pretty screwed. I’m not even sure I could go back.” Bucky shifts to sit a little more upright and Steve loosens his grip on his hand a little, fingertips brushing across Bucky’s skin. 

“Steve-”

“There’s someone I want,” Steve continues, smiling hesitantly. “And I’ve wanted him for years, even when I couldn’t, when I thought I’d never want anyone ever again, but now I can’t stop thinking about how much I-” he stutters, sighs as Bucky leans forward, closer, looking so starved and defeated. “I...” 

“Say it.” Bucky’s face is inches away from Steve’s. “I love you, Steve, I loved you when we were sixteen, and I’ve loved you ever since, and I love you now. You’re everything, Steve,” His lips curl against the corner of Steve’s mouth when Steve kisses him and choked laughter reverberates between them. One of Steve’s hands has moved to the back of Bucky’s neck and their foreheads rest against each other. 

“I love you too, Bucky,” Steve says and he knows Bucky can hear how he’s quietly pissed that Bucky said it first, after Steve’s been holding it back for years. Bucky’s free hand is buried in the front of Steve’s shirt and they’re laughing quietly, incredulously. Their breaths are stale and Steve wants to inhale the life radiating from Bucky. 

“I couldn’t lose you,” he mutters quietly, “I just couldn’t.” 

And Bucky sighs quietly, nudging Steve’s nose with his own. 

“How are we gonna pay for all this, Steve?” he asks, voice quiet. Steve shakes his head. 

“I don’t know. I don’t care.” 

Bucky snorts, and Steve’s pretty sure Agent Romanov has told Bucky the same thing Wilson told him - that whatever they’d seen while undercover was staying off the record, but that next time they were caught, the bandages were off. And Wilson has his number and address. 

There isn’t really a going back, Steve realises, and the thought is terrifying and elating.

**Author's Note:**

> My thanks - as always - go to [nerakrose](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nerakrose) and [mrs_jack_turner](http://archiveofourown.org/users/mrs_jack_turner/pseuds/mrs_jack_turner), who are all around gorgeous human beings and who not only betaed this thing, but also encouraged me to post it rather than lock it away in the vaults forever. Because they make A plus life choices, I trusted their judgement. 
> 
>  
> 
> Also, all I actually know about prostitution in the USA today is what I've read in other fic and have seen on TV, so please excuse if some of it smells a little of 19th century realism and the industrial revolution because yeah that's pretty much what I filled in the gaps with.


End file.
